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Sunday, February 3, 2013

VRF that!

Every 3 months, volunteers must send in
a computer report known as the VRF, or Volunteer Reporting File. In this
computer file, we record all the activities we have done during the previous 3
months, how many people participated, how much it cost, what goals/objectives
were achieved, how progress/success was observed and measured, paragraph
responses to a series of prompting questions (such as "What are your
current challenges?"), and any other comments, suggestions, complaints, or
concerns we might have.

Most volunteers hate the VRF. While it's not overly
difficult or time-consuming (if one's focused, it can be thoroughly completed
within 3-5 hours, depending on how busy -- or not -- the volunteer is at site),
the VRF is still a pain in the butt. There are a lot of buttons to click
on, various squares where numerical data needs to be entered (i.e. how many
females participated ages 15-24? males? under 15? how many succeeded? etc.), and
the computer program itself may be prejudice towards you and for whatever
reason not cooperate with your computer causing the computer to randomly freeze
or not save all the data you worked so hard to enter. Thus, most of us really despise the VRF and
put it off for as long as possible, though we could easily be working on it on
a regular basis, i.e. typing the data for a project immediately after the project
is finished, rather than waiting until the day before the VRF is due and trying
to remember everything that happened the last months and on what dates and how
many people were there….

Well, for once I have not procrastinated
too horribly and my VRF is finished – it’s not even due for another couple of
weeks! I won’t say that it’s the best
VRF I’ve ever written, nor is it quality reading material, but I did respond to
the open-ended questions with a lot of random topics that you might be interested
in. So below, as follows, is a portion
of my VRF responses for the months of October 2012 – January 2013.

Community Integration: How integrated do you feel in your
community? How is your language? What have you learned about cross-cultural
integration?

My level of community integration continues to improve, as always. But at the same, I think it has decreased in
some aspects due to the fact that because I am so comfortable with my village
and they so used to seeing me, I’m not always invited to as many things because
they know I’m busy with school or have already seen a wedding. Also, I’ve noticed more recently that it’s a
little more difficult to strike up conversations and keep them going for an
extended amount of time. This is because
I don’t have nearly as many things to talk/ask about, compared to last year
when everything was new and foreign. I have seen many things throughout the
past year and often already understand what is happening or what certain things
mean when I now encounter them, and so I don’t have to ask.

Also, new integration efforts with those I don’t know or who have newly
arrived have been minimal, and I really need to try and address this. It’s very weird when I’m the one explaining
something to a Burkinabe (i.e. where the marché is or if the boutique sells a
certain thing…) I feel proud when I know
things and can help Burkinabe, but it usually stops at that. Sometimes I forget to tell people my name and
what I do, because I’ve gotten used to pretty much everyone in village knowing
who I am.

Challenges: What challenges have you faced in your
projects or in other areas of your Peace Corps experience?

While the beginning of the school year started off wonderfully (I had
just gotten back from a 2-week vacation to Italy!), it quickly was full of
challenges. From struggles to getting a
wall around my house to not have a director at the CEG, I’ve encountered plenty
of problems and challenging situations the previous three months. One of the most irritating challenges has
been dealing with a lack of communication at the CEG. Due to the uncertain situation with the
director, teachers covering for the director, the secretary hardly present
since she had just had a baby, and then the elections, there has definitely
been a lack of communication this school year compared to last year, despite my
language skills being a THOUSAND times better than they were at this time last
year. No one tells me anything unless I
ask about it (but if I don’t “know” about it, I can’t ask…) and even if I do
get some information, it generally is brief and unhelpful. Many of the responses I’ve received have been
“Je ne sais pas,” or “well, you should ask the director, but since there’s no
director right now, you’ll just have to wait.”
I hate showing up to school only to find there’s randomly no school (my
homologue’s response: oh, I forgot to tell you not to go to school today.), or
instead of normal classes a presentation or speaker is being held. I’m experiencing a similar situation with the
mayor right now – he hasn’t been present for almost 2 months, and everyone
insists there’s no one else who I can talk to in the office for my library
project, and really, they’re correct, because I need official approval from the
mayor and no one else can do that… It’s
extremely frustrating.

An additional challenge has been working with my groups/schools on our
projects and grants. For whatever
reason, everyone’s train of thought seems to have turned and is now focused on
getting as much money from me as possible for the least amount of work, even
though they KNOW that for most the things we’re working on, there is NO money
involved (for them, i.e. per diem or paid hours for volunteering). I was/am interested in helping my CEG get a
new latrine, to be used primarily by teachers and visitors, as well as the
older 3eme students, but what started as a very organized project with everyone
doing his task for researching latrines and talking to various organizations to
gain verbal agreement for a community contribution has turned into a project
that I am not going to support and we will probably not do unless something
changes very quickly. I gave deadlines,
they weren’t met. Or things were given
to be half-finished at the very last minute.
I asked for a budget and list of specific materials/prices/quantities, I
was handed a list that was questionable (literally, it was full of question
marks: bags of cement 10 or 20?) and didn’t have a single price. They told me that I could do that when I went
to Ouaga, even though I told them I would not be researching any prices myself
(or at least by myself…). And then all
the teachers refused to consider a community contribution coming from them in
the form of everyone chipping in 2 or 3 mille, since it was their CEG and they
shouldn’t have to pay for a latrine for themselves to use – the actual
community should provide that for them.
So my response to all of this has been, “Well then, no latrine for you.”

And finally, my main challenges that have just arrived (after having
already typed up the above information earlier this month) are the problems I
recently discussed in person with both Diallo and Firmin. My 5eme class has been quite awful since we
returned to school in January, possibly due to the fact that 4 of the students
were accused of stealing my sitemate's camera, and thus taken to the
gendarmerie. Because of the class's
nonstop disrespectfulness, I talked to the other teachers, and this resulted in
2 male teachers entering the classroom (I had left) and beating numerous students
with a tree branch for 20-30 minutes. I
fear this may ruin my rapport and classroom environment, instead of making it
better. But as I left for Ouaga right
after this happened, I'm not really sure how my students are reacting or what
our next class will be like.

Additionally, minor annoyances and comments such as "The APE can
speak for you, since you work for the CEG and you and the APE are the
same" (referring to the APE giving permisson for someone to take my bricks
from my courtyard without ever having talked to me...) and "We will not
celebrate your birthday with you if villageoises are there too" have been
really discouraging. At the moment, with
the classroom problems, lack of communication, rude comments, etc. I am not
very happy at my site and not really sure how to balance all these issues
without offending people, but at the same, feel that I can't just
"laisser" everything because these are fairly big issues, and if I
just ignore them, they will either reoccur and/or my homologue and fellow
teachers won't know how much their actions and words bother me.

*Don’t ever leave things unattended.
Always keep your eye on things.
As happens every now and then, a few of my things have gone
missing. Nothing too serious; just some
pens, a bucket, clothespins hanging on my clothesline, my little solar-plaque
for recharging my batteries, my outdoor thermometer (inside my latrine). I’m reminded once again that I can’t trust
anyone with anything, ever. Even if I’m
just running over to my neighbor’s house for a few minutes, I can’t leave
anything outside – sadly, more than likely, it will disappear. Even if the gate to my newly built wall is
closed. Even if my dog is “keeping
guard.” Even if whatever it is happens
to be small and NAILED TO THE INSIDE OF MY LATRINE and essentially worthless to
Burkinabe, someone will find it and take it.
It’s so sad. But that’s the way
it is. Recently, my sitemate Molly had
several problems with theft, including my own students stealing her camera when
they stopped by after classes to “saluer” us and admire the murals we’re
painting. Even though it wasn’t my
camera, they were my students and I was present during the situation, and thus,
it was just as much my problem as it was Molly’s. We never did get the camera back. Also, even during our highly successful VSA
camps, we had students who tried to steal things – crayons, glue, scissors,
books, my soccerball, and our AIDS activity/game cards. Why they wanted a cartoon picture of a
pregnant women or a dirty needle, I will never understand, but there was a
student who tried to take them… When we
collected all the cards at the end of the activity and saw that we were missing
FIVE, we immediately told the students, but no one admitted to having taken the
cards. We (with the kids) searched
everywhere and the students even organized themselves into a sort of body/bag
search where everyone got patted down.
But still no cards. When we
threatened to tell their teacher, the kids got really nervous and began
searching outside under rocks and in bushes.
Finally three cards were found hidden a black sachet in a bush behind
the building we were holding the camp in.
Indeed, some students had plotted to steal our AIDS cards, with one boy
having asked us for permission to go to the bathroom, but really having just
hidden the cards so he could take them home later. The moral of all these stories: watch
everything, at every moment, always.

*Be specific. Make expectations
clear. Always be over-specific
(is that even possible?) and clarify things more times than necessary. There’s a good chance Burkinabe still won’t
understand or will miss a major point of something you said. A good example of this is when I asked my
homologue to use his internet key to send an important email message. It seemed like he understood me and told me
after class we could get it at his house.
He then immediately picked up his phone, called someone, said a few
words in local language, then turned
back to me and told me that for 30 mille so-and-so would drop of an internet
key for me. I was really confused –
there was no way I was going to pay more than a couple hundred CFA to have 5
minutes of internet, certainly not 30 mille – and my confusion made my
homologue confused. Finally I realized
he assumed I wanted to BUY a key. I’m
not sure how/why he thought that, considering I’ve said numerous times that I
will NOT be buying a key, and also since I specifically asked him to use HIS
key. But had I repeated my demand more
than once and over-explained what I was going to do and why, perhaps he would’ve
understand and we could have avoided this whole mess and not had to call back
whoever it was to cancel the key my homologue told him I was going to buy. This rule of making expectations clear
especially has been learned in school (or perhaps it’s just a strong reminder,
as I learned about how important it is to be specific last school year…). At the beginning of the this year, my students
weren’t used to me, but I forgot this, and just started off the year assuming
they could follow my instructions, my manner of speaking, etc. based off of how
my students responded to me at the end of last school year. But they couldn’t since they were all new
students (I don’t have any of the same students as last year), and thus I had
to “re-learn” how to be extremely specific with everything we do in class.

*People are counting on your presence.
Don’t overbook yourself.
There have been many holidays, weddings, funerals, and other gatherings
throughout the last 3 months. I’m
invited to almost everything, despite not always knowing who I’m talking to or
who’s getting married or what we’re celebrating… But sometimes things overlap, or whatever I’m
currently doing takes longer than anticipated and I am late or can’t make it
another thing or a visit to someone’s house for supper when I said I
would… Even though things are generally
very lackadaisical here with events starting an hour or two late, people always
arriving at least 45 minutes after you agree to meet, and people canceling or
forgetting about events altogether, apparently those “cultural rules” don’t
apply to me. I especially learned this
on New Year’s Eve. I was invited to so
many neighbors’ homes and other friends’ celebrations that I ran into problems
spending time with everyone. Some people
were just fine with me stopping by for 15 minutes, drinking tea with them, and
not joining them for their actual feast and dancing around midnight, but many
people were very hurt and disappointed when I told them that I had to continue
or that I would try to come back later after I greeted everyone else that was
on my list that night. In fact, there
were 3 families in particular that expected me to join them around midnight,
but obviously I could only be in one place, and had told them that at midnight
I would be with my friends at the CSPS.
They all saved food for me and commented to me the next morning about
how I didn’t celebrate with them, even though I had stopped by their house for
a significant amount of time earlier in the evening. One even said that he had bought/killed a
rabbit for our meal (i.e. for me), and that now I should give him some money
for the rabbit and other food (a bottle of coke, a salad, rice) that was made
for me but that I didn’t eat since I didn’t come back at midnight. I had told everyone if I would join them at
midnight or not, but of course no one actually listens or believes me, and so
they were hurt. It probably would’ve
been better had I chosen one or two parties to go to, and spent the entire
night there, and not passed by other friends’ celebrations at all. Also complicating matters is that when
Burkinabe say something will be ready in 5 minutes, they really mean an
hour. I should have known this, and so
sometimes when people offered to make me tea or asked if I would “at least eat
some salad before I continued to the next courtyard – it will only take 5
minutes), I should have politely refused and continued on my way. Instead I would agree and feel obligated to
make them happy by eating some of their salad or waiting for the tea, but then
this resulted in me spending an hour with someone I had just stopped in to say
hi to, and then arriving 2 hours late for someone that I had given a specific
time to. I actually felt very stressed
on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day due to this “overbooking” and arriving
“late” (yes, Burkinabe notice when I’m not exactly on time, even though they
are never even close to being on time…), and overall, quite bad about the
number of people who were let down when I didn’t pass the entire evening or
afternoon with them…even though they knew of my plans.

Planned Activities: What activities do you plan to undertake in
the next few months?

These next 3 months will probably be some of my busiest ever, although
I’m sure the months preceding my COS will prove to be even more chaotic and
stressful and busy…. Here’s what my
plans are for the next 3 months:

1. Teaching Math to 5e and 6e

2. Camp VSA (day camps with elementary students focusing on different
topics, such as environment and health)

7. Paint Library with sitemate Molly Morrison; work on developing a
community library association

8. Buy books and supplies for my grant project “Literacy Through the
Arts” – organize with teachers and school directors

9. Tree pepineres

Peace Corps Goal 2: Sharing
about America. If you have done
something in your community to help promote a better understanding of Americans
or your own heritage, or ideals you care about, please share your story below.

Almost every day, something about America is passed on from me to
students, friends, and neighbors. More
recently, with the holidays that have passed (Thanksgiving and Christmas), this
includes a variety of food items: cakes with frosting, mashed potatoes and
gravy, Chinese stir-fry, chili, veggie burgers, peanut brittle, and more. I love baking and cooking, and trying out my
favorite recipes from home and seeing if they’ll work here, or what I need to
modify/substitute to make something similar or comparable to something I eat
with my family back in America to celebrate the holidays. For my birthday (January 23) I had a “fete”
that consisted of American food – or as close to “American” as I could manage
in village. With the help of my
neighbors, I made a huge marmite full of chili, 8 loaves of corn bread, 100 pieces
of peanut brittle, a bowl of caramel popcorn, salad with dill dressing and
croutons, a cold pasta salad, and peanut-honey glazed eggplant. We drank pink lemonade, enjoyed a great meal
with monster cookies for dessert, and then I performed a piece of music on my
clarinet. It was the first time many of
them had seen me with my clarinet.

An additional sharing about America experience includes a visit from
Anders, a “vrai” American (as opposed to me, who hasn’t been in America in
almost 2 years…), who was visiting Molly during October. He and Molly spent a morning in my
classrooms, first observing their math lessons, and then answering questions
about himself that my students had pre-written in preparation for his
visit. The students had to write their
questions in both French and English, Anders responded in English, and Molly
and I translated his responses into French so the students could better
understand. Anders’s classroom visit
also included a small lesson on the USA.
I brought maps of the world and America, we showed pictures of our
respective states (Minnesota and Colorado), talked about general geography and
distance between countries in the world, etc.
At the end of each classroom visit, we learned a song in English and
then went outside to play Tug-o-war.

Also, with the help of my sitemate (Molly), I organized a series of
“American Holiday” afternoons with my CEG students. One Saturday, around October 31, we learned
about Halloween, carved Jack-o-lanterns out of watermelons, tasted candy corn
(sent from America), bobbed for oranges, pinned the hat on the witch, had a
witch’s broom relay race, and performed a skit about trick-or-treating and
eating too much candy which led into a nutrition sensibilisation. In
mid-December, we had a Thanksgiving and Christmas party. We made hand-turkeys, talked about how
Americans start preparing for Christmas as soon as Thanksgiving is over, drew
typical holiday images on the chalkboard that the students copied into their
notebooks (i.e. snowman, Santa Claus, candy cane, etc.) and explained the
meaning of each one. We also played
American Christmas music in the background and then made Christmas cards with a
message written inside in English. Molly
and I then sent these cards to our family and friends back home, along with a
letter written from us and an explanation of who had made the cards and
why.

Success Story: Provide a 2-3
paragraph story about the difference you and your counterparts have made in
your community. Describe the situation,
community background, process and implementation of the project, and what
results were achieved.

One of favorite recent successes was putting on Camp VSA (vie, santé,
et avenir – “life, health, and future”) with my sitemate, Molly Morrison. We held two consecutive day camps, each camp inviting
22 CM2 students: 11 boys and 11 girls each camp, i.e. 44 students in total
during the 2 camps. Both Camp VSA were
three days long (Thursday-Saturday) from 7am to 3pm, and featured the same
program/topics and schedule of activities.
The first camp, December 20-22, was for CM2 students from Lanfiera
primary school, while the second camp, December 27-29, was for Guiedougou
primary school.

A typical day started with everyone arriving by 7am, students helping
“set-up” the camp by sweeping, laying out the nattes, and taking out the
hand-washing station and soap. We then
ate a simple and quick breakfast (bread with a cup of hot milk-tea), and then
did warm-ups, which consisted of singing, dancing, stretching, and some running
and jumping-jacks. By 8:30 am, we
started our first lesson, 9:30 was art/craft time, 10:30 was lesson #2, and at
11:30 we had a few minutes of free-time and personal reading time until lunch
at noon. Following lunch there was
recreation time, during which we set out some balls and jump ropes; additionally,
each day there was one group who had to clean up after lunch (i.e. wash dishes
and refill water). Next we had 30
minutes of group story time, then did some more warm-ups and singing before our
third and final lesson of the day. At
2:30 pm, the small groups got together to prepare a skit on a topic we had
talked about that day, and then at 2:45 they presented their skits. We closed the day at 3:00 pm by singing a
song or two, cleaned up the camp site (put things back in the house, swept,
locked the door, etc.), and then said good-bye!

Overall, the camp was a great success in each and every way. Each one of our lessons (hand washing, dental
care, environment, nutrition, gender equality, HIV/AIDS, malaria, future
planning) went extremely well, especially since we were prepared and had an
activity or hands-on prop/demonstration that the students could use to better participate. Furthermore -- an additional aspect of this
camp that I am very satisfied with -- there was very little cost involved, with
the majority of expenses falling for the food that we provided. Starting the day off by eating and drinking
something was a nice touch, as well as eating lunch together, but had we opted
not to feed the kids (i.e. the children return home to eat from 1pm until 3pm,
and then return for camp again from 3pm to 5pm), I think that would have worked
just as well, and then camp would have cost next to nothing! Our camp model just goes to show that
impactful activities in a “camp” setting can occur without the need for lots of
money, staying somewhere overnight, paying transportation costs, etc. In fact, camp was so successful (and “easy” –
in certain ways, of course!), that we plan to do another set of camps in the
next few months, both in our villages, as well as nearby villages with other
volunteers who have asked us to help them put on a day camp.

One of my most memorable moments of Camp VSA was when we did the gender
session. It was a rather simple and
basic introduction to sex versus gender, and we started by splitting the boys
and girls up and having them brainstorm a list of roles/work/activities for
boys and then for girls. After 15 minutes,
we rejoined and each group presented their two lists. We then had a small discussion on whether
each group had written good lists, if the girls wrote something “untrue” about
boys, etc. and proceeded to explain the difference between sex and gender,
which led into our activity. We had a
variety of professions and hobbies written on index cards (such as doctor,
president of Burkina Faso, breastfeed a baby, write a book, cook a meal, play a
drum) and the students had to decide whether their specific card was for men or
women, placing the card under the appropriate heading. For the most part, everyone agreed with every
card placement as it was happening (i.e. doctor is for men, cooking is for
women), but every now and then someone would disagree with a card (professor is
for men – “No! Women are professors,
too!”), but our rule was that the person placing the card put it where he/she
wanted, and everyone else had to wait until the end to discuss if they wanted to
change a card. By the time we finished
placing all the cards, there were definitely some students who were riled up
about the “incorrect” placement of cards, and this led perfectly into our
actual discussion on gender equality.

“Are there women teachers?”

“YES! -- NO!”

“Think of your school, are there men who teach? Yes, there are. And are there women? Yes.
So where should we place this card?
Under men or women? …. Oh, so perhaps ‘both’ is the best answer. We need to create a new heading – things both
men and women can do.”

The majority of cards fell into the “both” category without too much of
a problem or too many students disagreeing, although we still had to “prove”
each card for them so that they completely understood and also to help those
students who didn’t agree: “Actually, girls CAN play a drum. We saw that this morning when Barkissa led us
in our songs. So it’s not just boys who
play drums.” Interestingly, the girls
got very upset when we told them that cooking was for boys also. The boys didn’t want to cook and insisted it
was solely a task for females, and the girls weren’t interested in “letting”
boys prepare food, either…but at the end, they did agree that both males and
females could make something to eat, if they want/need to.

The most debatable card was “president of Burkina Faso.” The boys were
literally distraught and in shock when we told them that in other countries in
the world (in Africa, in fact!) there exist women presidents, and one boy even
cried. The girls felt empowered, but the
boys wouldn’t have it and kept shouting, “No, girls can’t. Never.
Burkina will NEVER have a female president. It’s not possible. We won’t vote for her.” Kids were shouting, almost ready to hit each
other if someone disagreed, and they got so involved and emotional during the
discussion that things almost got too intense and a little out of hand. We had to implement a talking stick: only the
person holding our special stick got to talk, and everyone else had to remain
silent, raise their hands if they wanted to say something, and, if necessary,
cover their mouth with their other hand to prevent from blurting/yelling
something out. We also had to have the
boys on one side of the room, remaining on their natte at all times, and the
girls on their natte located on the other side of the room. They were just so passionate about the topic,
that they started physically expressing their ideas or discontent when they
disagreed. But, in the end, they finally
agreed that anyone could become president someday, even of Burkina Faso.

This session was very influential, for both me and the students. I have no doubt that this lesson provoked
some thoughts and ideas and questions that they had never ever thought of or
even heard of before! Their minds were
shocked – their worlds were blown.
Overall the girls were very excited, and yet interestingly, at the end,
a few of the boys seemed a little sad and discouraged about what their world
was coming to, almost to the point of tears (Women who can be president? Men who do laundry? Craziness!
We men can’t let that happen!). I
was extremely surprised at all of the emotions this session brought to the
surface, and how EVERY student got involved and wanted to have a say or share
an opinion on what was happening. They
rarely get the chance to be so involved in their normal classrooms, especially
on such a “taboo” topic, so it was nice to see them open up so quickly during
this session and share their true views. The gender session, along with the rest of
Camp VSA, was definitely a success; quite possibly even a highlight of my
entire Peace Corps service thus far!